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Phase 2 back up

Welcome to the second phase of your Integrated Osteoarthritis Management Program. Phase Two – Consolidation Weight Loss covers from weeks 7 to 12.

The primary goals for the next six weeks are to achieve and maintain weight loss of around 7 to 10% of your starting weight; to progressively increase your physical activity; as well as for you to understand the:

• conscious and unconscious influences on your food choices.
• benefits of healthy shopping and reading food labels.
• steps for making good habits for life.
• importance of stress management and a support network

 

Over the next 6 weeks your plan will be as follows:

Lunch and Snacks | Mindful Eating and Drinking

One of the simplest ways to take control of what and how much you eat is to pack your own lunch and snacks every day. With the Healthy Weight for Life™ lunch and snack cooler bag, along with the healthy lunch portions instructions, you will have delicious, healthy and satisfying lunches and snacks every day. Another strategy that will help you achieve your weight loss goals, and to enjoy your food more, is to establish mindful eating practices. This means paying more attention to the type and quantity of food you eat and what you drink. It also means tuning in more closely to your body to assess your hunger cues and feelings of fullness.

 

The Week 7 – Lunch and Snacks module of the Healthy Weight for Life™ guidebook takes you through the benefits of using the HWFL lunch and snack cooler bag, as well as providing tips for creating portion planned morning and afternoon snacks, and healthy and satisfying lunches, while the Week 8 – Mindful Eating and Drinking module outlines tips for mindful eating and drinking. Below is a brief summary of the key components of these modules.

 

Week 7 – Lunch and Snacks

Packing your own lunch and snacks will help ensure your weight loss journey stays on track – whether you are at home or out and about, as:

• you will be less likely to overeat;
• healthy food will be available to power you through the day;
• your food and drink choices will be less influenced by your emotional state;
• your temptation of unhealthy choices will be limited; and
• you can save time and money on café meals or take-away.

The instructions for the healthy lunch and snack portions have been specifically designed by dietitians to provide a healthy and nutritionally balanced intake of:

• 3 serves of carbohydrates;
• 1 serve of protein;
• 1 serve (or more) of vegetables / salad;
• 2 serves of fruit and
• 1 serve of low fat dairy.

The HWFL lunch and snack bag contents should be consumed over time (between breakfast and dinner) to provide a constant source of energy throughout the day – you shouldn’t feel hungry!

Healthy lunch and snack portions

In order to pack your healthy, portion controlled lunch and snacks, combine your choice of:

Helpful Hints:

>>>  Make packing your lunch and snack box one of your new healthy habits
>>>  Pack your lunch and snack box even when you are traveling or staying at home
>>>  If your mornings are hectic, pack your lunch and snack box the night before and store it in the refrigerator

Preparing your lunch and snacks is easy, all you have to do is:

1. Create your own lunch box by following the portion guidelines from week 7 of your Week by Week Guide, OR
2. Prepare one of the Lunch and Snack Ideas from the Recipes and Ideas chapter of your Week by Week Guide.

For people with type 2 diabetes, the lunch and snacks portions contain approximately 90g of carbohydrate or 6 exchanges. This is too much carbohydrate for most people for one meal, so you will need to spread your lunchbox carbohydrates evenly throughout the day for lunch and snacks, such as morning and afternoon tea. This will keep you energised and help keep your blood glucose levels within the normal range.

Week 8 – Mindful Eating and Drinking

Some of the key point covered in this module are:

• Mindful eating practices will help you eat less and enjoy your food and drink more.
• When you no longer feel hungry, you should stop eating.
• There are many non-hunger factors that influence our food and beverage choices.  You can work out strategies to overcome the ones that work against your weight loss goals.

Non-hunger factors that influence food and drink choices

There are an enormous number of things, other than simply hunger, that influence what we eat. If you can identify and become aware of some of the non-hunger triggers that influence what you eat it will make it a lot easier to develop your own strategies to help you take back control of what you are eating and when.

Some examples of the many non - hunger influences on food choice are shown in the following table.

Shopping Smart

Planning ahead to pack lunches every day means your food choices when shopping become very important. Devise a shopping list for your meat, bread, cereals, rice or pasta and your vegetables and fruits.

When choosing packaged goods, remember to compare nutritional panels. They display information on the nutritional content including the level of energy, protein, total fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar and sodium content of foods.

Remember, it’s the energy content of foods (ENERGY IN) that contributes to weight gain. Packaging claims of “low fat”, “fat reduced”, “99% fat free” etc. doesn’t necessarily mean low calories. As an example, consider a 500g bag of white sugar; it is 100% fat free yet you still would not consider eating half a bag as a snack!

By checking the energy density of foods i.e. the amount of energy (in kJ or cal) per 100g (or 100ml) you will be able to choose healthy choices over less healthy choices.